>I don't see the purpose of a moon base
mankind must expand. we need to walk forward ...
buy this kind of thinking mankind wouldnt have done anything
why are you living each day !!
Mankind must not stay in a vegetative state ...

And what if people who settled the new word have tough like you ...

Last edited by Carn on Sun Jan 11, 2004 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you for making a comparison to the early explorers like Columbus. Perfect analogy. They used a criteria for exploration based upon economic gain - not idealism. They didn't explore just for the hell of it. Queen Isabella sent Columbus westward to claim land and any booty he could find, or steal, and bring it back for the greater glory of Spain. Those explorers set out to explore the new world for very hard practical reasons - new wealth, trade, booty, and new subjects for the crown, and the power that comes with all of that - exactly the criteria any commerical enterprise will list for going to the moon.

But in the case of the moon, however, that criteria has not been met. And it is unlikely to be met anytime soon based upon any argument I've heard so far or any technology I've read about to pursue such bounty. The technology is not there to make such an endeavor work safely with any confidence, and it certainly is not there to make it economically feasible, much less economically attractive for any rational commercial enterprise.

In my opinion, we are not ready for the moon yet. We are looking at 75-100 years before any moon base. That time will pass very quickly, and the advancements made in the meantime will pave the way. But I realize for two generations of kids raised on Star Trek, that time can't come soon enough.

I assure you i'm not very exited about bush's speach, the only reason it's good is that it will bring more funding and publicity to nasa, his reasons for doing it are completely selfish and political. i know he-3 can be produced with fission and also that it exists in theory on earth, but the amounts are so small as to be nonexistent (like francium for example). the reason he-3 is useful isn't because of its proton emission but because it's easier and safer to fuse than hydrogen, no matter what isotope of that you have, at least so far.

I think something you guys are forgetting is that manned spaceflight is currently the domain of nasa and the russians, china doesn't count yet, but the x-prize is trying to change that, and in the process decrease the costs to fly up by something around a thousandfold per trip, if not more. consider that for the moon and a trillion dollar facility suddenly becomes feasible because if anything the actual equipment won't cost a whole lot more than getting it up into space to assemble and then sending it there, plus i'm sure commercial enterprise can do the base itself cheaper than nasa anyways. obviously this won't make any difference for the nasa base, but still. when you mention the other explorers you also don't consider that the reason the government went was because the way to increase its power was to increase its mineral wealth. there are alot more factors in determining a nations power these days, and the moon is a huge boon to whomever has a base up there for military/surveillance purposes, a fact which george bush noticed and is taking action on.

the reason he-3 is useful isn't because of its proton emission but because it's easier and safer to fuse than hydrogen, no matter what isotope of that you have, at least so far.

Nothing is as safe as hydrogen fuel because hydrogen fuel cells produce only water as a by-product. Most of the auto manufacturers are beginning to bring hydrogen fueled cars online. In time, hydrogen will replace fossil fuels. But it might not happen for a long time to come. He3 is a form of nuclear power and it has yet to produce electricity. Most importantly, unlike He3, hydrogen is available on earth everywhere. The reason why it has not taken over from fossil fuels is that the cost of the electrolysis process used to separate the hydrogen atom from the oxygen atom in a water molecule, is still more expensive than burning fossil fuels for the same energy produced. As fossil fuel prices rise, hydrogen starts to make economic sense. But I regret that we still have another 40 years of fossil fuels left. It's quite possible that we may not live long enough to see fossil fuels displaced.

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but the x-prize is trying to change that, and in the process decrease the costs to fly up by something around a thousandfold per trip, if not more. consider that for the moon and a trillion dollar facility suddenly becomes feasible because if anything the actual equipment won't cost a whole lot more than getting it up into space to assemble and then sending it there, plus i'm sure commercial enterprise can do the base itself cheaper than nasa anyways.

The X-prize competition will have no effect on the cost, or ability, to put materials into space, much less put them into space at an affordable rate. The X-prise contenders are operating in a totally different performance arena in terms of payload and speed. To get something to the moon, the vehicle has to reach the earth's gravitational escape velocity of about 28,000 mph. At that speed, the energy required to leave the earth for the moon is tremendous - allowing only small vessels holding three astronauts sitting cheek-to-jowel created by the biggest aerospace firms in the world. And to do that, they needed a rocket the size of a Saturn V. The economies of scale are absurd once we talk about projecting heavy equipment into space and beyond the gravitational escape speed. (or even the steel to create pre-fab parts.) The space shuttle has never left the earth's gravitational field, in essence it has never traveled into space, so I don't think Burt Rutan will be creating any vehicles to help in that department.

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consider that for the moon and a trillion dollar facility suddenly becomes feasible because if anything the actual equipment won't cost a whole lot more than getting it up into space to assemble and then sending it there

The difficulty in making a moon base is operating in a zero-air pressure, high-radiation, low-gravity environment. That is what makes it an impossible dream for the time being, not simply the launch and transportation of the material 250,000 miles to the moon. As challenging as that is, that is the easy part. Consider the ongoing construction of the ISS. It is nothing more than a several pressure vessels connected together for supporting a few astronauts living and performing science experiments. The total cost of the project is in excess of 100 billion dollars and it is just a flimsy contraption, leaking air, powered by solar cells. That is what 100 billion buys you. Not much. Now extrapolate that into actually creating an industrial base, where heavy equipment is being operated and millions of tons of substrate is being processed, you would need to recreate a mining operation on the moon. If 100 billion buys an office for several people to live and research, then a mining operation would cost 100 trillion. Again the conclusion is inevitable: It is impossible to mine the moon for anything at this time and for the foreseeable future. Enthusiasm alone does not make such feats possible, much less profitable. You have to understand the science involved. Leaving earth to do anything is still a feat. Mining on earth is a feat. The power and size of those machines is astounding. To combine the two - leaving the earth to mine the moon, well that is for Hollywood.

first of all i would like to say that NASA needs a long term "away from leo"
goal in order to focus the entire organisation. it is scattered, with millions of dollars being spent on projects that are never completed and there are no technology or any gains of any kind for that matter.

secondly i am glad that the Bush administration is going to announce something like this. even though such an announcement is probably being layed down because of presidential elections, and has a high probability of "fissiling out", NASA would still gain extra funds out of this.

i agree that maybe a moonbase would be a premature move given our current state of technology because we have not discovered better methods of escaping earths gravity and hence billions is spent in order to get us to our "space" destinmations, but if this is the argument, why do space at all?
why not give it up, and let the money get spent on iraq or repaying budget defficits or designing new weapons programs?

the most logical step to be taken by my account if space is to be explored would be to invest the billions into next generation propulsion technolgies such as NASA's APP (advanced propulsion project) that was shut down the beginning of 2003, but do you see President Bush announceing to the world " America is now going to rapidly invest our billions into researching a new propulsion technologies even though we dont even know what the outcomes might be", that would do well for his election campaign, yeah right.

an other argument in support of such an idea of a moonbase is that even though our knowledge of propulsion systems would probably not be furthered like it was in the 60's, we would gain insight on how to develop systems to live on other worlds and eventually "live off the land" so to speak via first hand experience by testing the hardware on the moon itself.

on a more personal note i would feel honored that one of my own race was traversing the distand lands of another planet, to look up at the moon and actually visualise another "man on the moon". shoot me down, point out where i am wrong, but just remember bush's speech will remain "speech" until i see another man start out where Eugene Cernan left off.

lets just hope its an international effort, so that america doesnt have to carry the whole burden and so that other agencys such as CNSA can gain valuble experience.

the reason he-3 is useful isn't because of its proton emission but because it's easier and safer to fuse than hydrogen, no matter what isotope of that you have, at least so far.

Nothing is as safe as hydrogen fuel because hydrogen fuel cells produce only water as a by-product.

you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about and that quote proves the point. fusion has NOTHING TO DO with fuel cells or any chemical process, and produces an astronomically higher amount of energy than those do. also, xprize vehicles will be able to be used for small payoad delivery with only some minor modification, but it's not the actual vehicle that's important, it's the principle of smaller companies being able to do what nasa and large corporations do at a hundred times the price (yes even suborbital).

I don't see the confusion. I said hydrogen fuel cells produce only water as a by-product whereas He3 is a radioactive process that emits a proton of radiation. A fuel cell is a chemical reaction that produces power. That is what drives a hydrogen-powered car, for example. There is no fusion required in such a power system. But there is fusion with He3. As we already discussed, it is a lowly radioactive element but it does emit protons in the fusion process and that is something that concerns any industry, for example the auto industry, about using it. Hydrogen fuel cells produce no radiation. And what is best is that hydrogen is available all around us.

If you would like to learn more about the topic, I can email you some links that are excellent.

Again, the performance parameters required to launch anything toward the moon are still at the furthest edge of America's aerospace capability. Even NASA, the ESA, and Chinese still lose rockets. The power required to achieve orbital speed, 17,500 mph, and ultimately earth's gravitational escape velocity of 28,000, and the inertial guidance system to handle that much power, are far beyond any vehicle that could be made for under 100 billion. Another way to understand the huge gulf between the X-prize challengers and any NASA challenge to the moon, is to look at the money. The X-prize is 10 million. The cost to send 12 astronauts to the moon and back, just for its own sake, cost 100 billion in today's dollars.

In 1999, in the span of one month, four major rocket failures occurred, all four being manufactured by the two major aerospace firms, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Two were lost the year before in 1998. In total, those six failures cost the industry 20 billion dollars. The reasons for the failures were a myriad of small technical glitches. Fortunately, these were all unmanned vehicles! If the X-prize is meant to motivate the little guy to get into the manned space business, they better up the prize money.

The Moon: NASA's Proving Ground for Mars Missions and Beyond>>Spudis said that secondary objectives would be to develop the operational strategies using people and machines to maximize the efficiency and results of planetary (lunar) surface operations. "The final goal is to begin to establish an Earth-Moon transport infrastructure, based on the use of lunar resources."

http://www.permanent.com/l-base.htmSurface manufacturing capabilities for the purpose of building up the lunar base using local materials would be quite worthwhile, e.g., for making steel and glass-ceramic structural items. A mobile solar reflector oven could make the landing/launch pad, road surfaces, dome roofs, etc. Most of the base, in terms of weight, will be produced on-site from local materials, not blasted up from Earth.

The lunar base will need a landing/launch pad, a power plant (perhaps a solar cell array for daytime "peak" energy and a small nuclear power plant for nighttime), base construction equipment, a spare parts and maintenance garage, a central control and communications center, housing for the people on-site, and life support systems. Of course, it will also need the mining and beneficiation equipment discussed in other sections. The mining equipment (flail and haulers) and a solar oven would be used in building the initial lunar base before being employed for supplying material for industry in orbital space.

If you would like to learn more about the topic, I can email you some links that are excellent.

In 1999, in the span of one month, four major rocket failures occurred, all four being manufactured by the two major aerospace firms, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Two were lost the year before in 1998. In total, those six failures cost the industry 20 billion dollars. The reasons for the failures were a myriad of small technical glitches. Fortunately, these were all unmanned vehicles! If the X-prize is meant to motivate the little guy to get into the manned space business, they better up the prize money.

a) i already know plenty about hydrogen cells and other alt. fuels, because though i'm still a student i do work with people in the alt. fuels department at the local university. the REASON for fusion over chemical has NOTHING TO DO with saftey. the reason for fusion is because it's a nuclear reaction, and nuclear reactions produce incalcuably greater amounts of energy than chemical processes. i mean, even just fission is so much better than any hydrocarbon fuel and indeed, than any other fuel either used for electrical production, and fission is over 100 times less efficient than fusion if both have the same activation energy.

b) you seem to assume that if the aerospace giants can't do it neither can the little guys, without realizing that the advantage of the little guys aren't that they are so big and uber but rather that there are so many of them that do it. 26 vs 2, i mean even if the 2 are huge, the 26 have to have enough good brainpower to make it up. funding isn't really as big an issue as that.

Safety, indeed. One is radioactive and one is not. One produces H20 as a by-product and the other produces radiation. The choice is clear. Just to give you some insight into this: I have a TIG welder and the electrodes for this type of welding contain the element Thorium. This is an element that is mildly radioactive. Frequently a welder must grind his electrode on a grinding wheel to clean off any contamination from the welding process. In the process of grinding, tiny bits of grinding dust are produced that can go everywhere in the shop and also into the air. This is something that is of concern to any welder. They should be grinded outside or with a heavy duty ventilation system. Unfortunately, for some applications, a 2% thorium electrode is still the best one for the job. However, because of this very tiny lowly radioactive element, the manufacturers strongly recommend against using this type of electrode if it is at all possible to use the others with non-radioactive content. What does that tell you? I know what it tells me.

He3 will be utilized in a reactor only. Reactors require shielding. Why bother when hydrogen is abundant and clean with no by-product? Cars will not have their own reactors, for reasons of safety, weight, and expense. He3 is theoretically aimed at power plants. But it will not be something we'll see for a long time. Pundits have long agreed that the 21st century will belong to hydrogen. Perhaps He3 will belong to the 22nd century. That's why enthusiastic speculation at this point is inane. I don't know how else to make you understand that. I guess you will believe what you will believe.

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26 vs 2, i mean even if the 2 are huge, the 26 have to have enough good brainpower to make it up. funding isn't really as big an issue as that.

Surely you are not suggesting that the likes of these X-prize contestants (26?) can build rocket ships to the moon? I know now you're young and impressionable and talk of spaceships flying to the moon gets you going, but I had no idea you were harboring those thoughts. I'm sorry, I had no idea who I was conversing with. That's the internet for you. All this time. I know you mean well, but the joke's on me. Do I feel stupid.

[He3 will be utilized in a reactor only. Reactors require shielding. Why bother when hydrogen is abundant and clean with no by-product? Cars will not have their own reactors, for reasons of safety, weight, and expense. He3 is theoretically aimed at power plants. But it will not be something we'll see for a long time. Pundits have long agreed that the 21st century will belong to hydrogen. Perhaps He3 will belong to the 22nd century. That's why enthusiastic speculation at this point is inane. I don't know how else to make you understand that. I guess you will believe what you will believe.

Surely you are not suggesting that the likes of these X-prize contestants (26?) can build rocket ships to the moon? I know now you're young and impressionable and talk of spaceships flying to the moon gets you going, but I had no idea you were harboring those thoughts. I'm sorry, I had no idea who I was conversing with. That's the internet for you. All this time. I know you mean well, but the joke's on me. Do I feel stupid.

first point, yes duh of course He-3 will be only used by reactors, i never said anything else, but you need electricity to make hydrogen, on earth at least, and He-3 fusion will be a very very very good way of doing that, since it is/will be safer than using deuterium or tritium. the only reason we don't have He-3 fusion reactors is because we don't have any He-3. safe, controlled fusion of He-3 is a lot easier than that of hydrogen. i think the 21st century has the potential to be He-3's century, at least from a power plant/spaceflight standpoint, and the 22nd to be hydrogen's for power and either that or antimatter for spaceflight.

second point, i have no doubts that scaled could send a ship to the moon. don't mistake me and think that means they could NOW, but after x-prize is won by them, as it is in all likelyhood will, i wouldn't be suprised to see them go for an orbital ship, especially if there's an x2 prize. i think 2010 is a reasonable year to set for completion of that, and 2020 for the next step, which is something beyond leo, which of course is the moon. don't start flaming me for being optimistic. that is optimistic, however it is very doable assuming there's no/little government interference with it.

third point, someone else please come into this argument, it gets old saying the SAME THING over and over to a person